Once you scale for frequency the faster models all have lower latencies in nanoseconds. The most likely reason the 1600/1866mhz parts fall behind is that as the lowest performing models in the current generation they're where all the worst performing chips are being dumped. 2 years ago 1866 was still a middle of the pack speed.Reply

I am not impressed by the high frequencies with no attention paid to latencies. I won't pay a arm and a leg for that.. I will however shell it out for something with high frequencies and timings that come in lower than what you expect to find in most memory kits.

I hope memory makers keep that in mind as they move into DDR4 but so far .. doesn't look like they are. Reply

I really wonder why people spend so much money on RAM like this. I mean I am running 8GB of DR3 1333 and there is not a game I play that is not maxed out at 1080p (or rather 1200p technically). The bottleneck is almost always in the GPU, or CPU when it comes to fps performance issues, and the HDD/SSD when it comes to load times. I mean sure, if you have the money to blow on a toy then go eat your heart out; it just surprises me that there would be much of any real demand for this kind of high speed ram when DDR4 is almost right around the corner.Reply

I know your question is rhetorical, but I'll piggy-back anyway. Why do people buy the i7-4770 vs i7-4771? Why do people buy Titan Black vs 780Ti? Samsung 840 over 830? Lots of products are similar in performance and give very little overall gain, but can make significant differences in specific use cases.

Personally, I buy the low-profile memory because I don't need my RAM to be 6" tall.Reply

I don't buy the highest rated RAM. But implying that 1333MHz is good enough is weird. Sure, FPS will hardly be impacted (unless you game on an iGPU). But real world performance for stuff like photo and video editing, compression, solvers etc. really scales with RAM speed. And paying 1 or 5% more for RAM (1600 and 1866MHz are often as cheap as 1333MHz these days) is a no brainer to me. As long as they are not too tall. :DReply

To this day my best purchase was 16 GB of G Skill Ripjaws DDR3 2133 with Cas 9 latency at 1.65 V. Say what you will about bandwidth, but when it comes to gaming, there is very little difference between these ultra modules vs midrange memory with tight timings. Price vs performance has always been the reason I visit anandtech.Reply

Yeah when upgrading my rig I found it quite hard to find high speed + low latency. Settled for second hand 1600/9-9-9-24. 2800 sounds great until you see 12-14-14-36 behind it!!! (not an APU user so not bothered too much).Reply

Higher clocks and higher cas latency correspond to the same amount of real world latency as list clocks and lower cas. You won't do better than about 50ns real world. Check out the article on ddr3.Reply

They don't, and yes. Oversized RAM heatspreaders only exist because manufacturers have got it into their heads that bigger and blingier is better. I'm currently running 2x 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport sticks (rated: DDR3-1600 / CL9 / 1.5V) at DDR3-1600 / CL7 / 1.65V and the very minimal heatspreaders on these modules barely get warm enough for me to even know they're running.

I really wish more review sites would call manufacturers out on this ridiculous trend. It doesn't make the RAM perform better, it obstructs heatsinks, and it ends up costing more.Reply

Wow, Cas 7 @ 1600? That is pretty good for sticks that were rated @ 9..CAS 7 1600 or 9 @ 1866 seems to be a sweet spot aside from the few applications out there that can scale with memory speed. I personally run a 16GB set of G.Skill 2133 @ 10-11-10 (older quad channel kit) paired with my 3770K @ 5.1Ghz..I would much rather have my ram @ 2133 then have to drop my golden delidded 3770K down to ~4.8Ghz to run it @ 2400Mhz+..Reply